


Escape From Bondage

by amyfortuna



Series: 2016 Season of Kink (Card 1) [11]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Badass Ladies, Clothed Sex, Confinement, F/F, Hair Kink, Homophobia, Tribadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7980328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artanis loves Lúthien, Lúthien loves Artanis. Together, they can overcome anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Escape From Bondage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maitimiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maitimiel/gifts).



> This also fulfils my Season of Kink square for confined/caged.

Artanis fell in love the very first moment she looked at Lúthien. The great hall of Menegroth was crowded, and the king and queen themselves were stepping forward to greet her as their kinswoman, but all her focus shifted suddenly to the slender maiden standing beside Melian. Falling in love was, she thought distractedly, a sensation no less powerful than seeing the first rising of the Moon after years in the dark and cold. 

Thingol caught her with Lúthien one spring morning many years later as they lay in the grass under a tree, just post-lovemaking. His wrath was fierce - confusion and anger bleeding into each other and exploding in vicious sarcasm. It was his way of dealing with anything he did not understand. Banning Quenya upon learning of the slaughter at Alqualondë, as he had done twenty years before, had been much the same. And yet to feel his wrath turned upon her was something else altogether. 

Artanis was summarily exiled from the kingdom of Doriath. 

She had gathered up her clothing, pulling her dress over her head and shaking down her long golden hair, before Thingol finished speaking the words of her banishment. "It is not exile from your kingdom that I fear, oh lord and kinsman," she said, coolly and calmly. "I have been exiled ere now from greater kingdoms than yours and counted it no great loss, mere baggage to leave behind, outgrown its use and purpose." She caught a glimpse of Lúthien's face, eyes wide with unsought pain, and turned, catching her hands in her own. "The only exile I fear is from your affection, my own beloved." 

Lúthien's smile was just beginning to return when Thingol spoke again. "Kinsman you have named me," he said, voice cold as Helcaraxë ice, "and as a kinsman I welcomed you to my land, brought you to my bosom, golden snake. And like a snake you struck at the heart of me, seeking to take that which I would preserve above all else. But you shall not have my daughter! The madness you have cast upon her will go when you do, and until you are long gone," - he gestured to the guards behind him - "she shall be kept safe. For she is as dear to me as the Silmarils of Fëanor were to him, and for no less price will I give her away." 

The guards dragged Lúthien away, and Artanis was forced to release her hands. "It is no madness!" Lúthien said. "It is love, Father, will you not see? It is only love!" 

"You are cousins," Thingol said, speaking to Lúthien. "Kin. We may be far from Valinor here, and the light of the Trees that once I saw, but I remember the laws we were given, and so does your mother. You are too near, and both women besides. There's no fruit of this possible, and you are my only child. Could you not have been happy with Daeron?"

"Only yestermorn Daeron was not good enough for me!" Lúthien said, struggling. "So you said yourself."

"It is a father's part to think no creature that walks the earth good enough for his only daughter," Thingol said, voice fading from anger into sorrow. "Oh my child! How could your mother not have foreseen this?" He glanced up at the guards. "There is a room built on Hírilorn's boughs. Take her there, my wayward songbird, and remove the ladder so she cannot climb down. Post guards, at least two, ever present at the foot of the tree." He turned back to Artanis. "And you. Get you gone from my kingdom. These guards will take you to half-completed Nargothrond or wheresoever you wish, so long as it is outside of Doriath. Do not return, for the way is shut to you and to your family." 

Artanis stood tall and proud, scorn ringing in her voice. "You spoke of the Silmarils of Fëanor, though little enough do you know of them, and said that you would yield Lúthien for them, as a price. For such little things you would sell your daughter?" 

Thingol looked at her, and then at Lúthien, then back at Artanis. Slowly, he nodded, as if a thought came into his mind. "If you wish indeed to take Lúthien from her parents, if you are certain that it is no spell you have cast upon her, then bring to me the Silmarils of Fëanor as an earnest of your desire, and I will, loath though I am to do it, give you my daughter." 

Artanis' laughter rang out in the glade, cold and clear as crystal. "If that is all you wish for - gems and things made of craft - then I would say that you deserve Lúthien not, and you shall not keep her." Artanis turned to Lúthien. "Farewell, my fair one - but not for long!" 

A day into the journey out of Doriath, Artanis had given her guards the slip, using a simple trick learned long ago in Aman to dazzle their senses. She'd taken forest paths back to Menegroth, often in the trees, avoiding the more well-known routes entirely, moving cautiously from branch to branch. She encountered no one except some chittering squirrels, and the occasional bird's nest, which she'd skirted with apologies to the mother birds who sat on their eggs within. Returning to Menegroth by such a route had taken her a full four days. 

Lúthien's cage was set up in the branches of Hírilorn. It had not originally been built as a cage, but as a retreat for members of the court who desired solitude for a while and yet needed to stay close by. It was a sturdy-built treehouse of wood, and inside Lúthien was waiting. 

A ladder, of course, was lying at the foot of the tree. It would not stay steady if not held at the foot by at least two of Thingol's guards, so there was no question of being able to put it up and climb to Lúthien without their knowledge. Artanis had to seek some other way. 

She took most of a day to work out a route through the trees, and then at least an hour to traverse it, late at night, when the guards paid less attention, and Lúthien's voice, singing low and melodic, could be heard. Artanis fancied it made them sleepy to hear her. Some magic was in her song, at any rate, though Artanis did not feel tired, but wide-awake, nerves buzzing under her skin with warm desire to get to her beloved and spring her free.

Artanis landed lightly on the top of the small hut and peered over the edge to be sure the guards were not watching. They were chatting together by the fire, for the spring evening was cool, and did not seem of a mind to be looking up into the tree. Swiftly, she ran to the edge of the roof at the back of the hut and dropped flat, looking through the window. Lúthien met her there, and with a silent swift smile, helped her into the room. She could get in easily enough, but getting back out again would be a much harder matter. 

"Shhh," Lúthien said, as Artanis' eyes went wide. Lúthien's head was shorn of hair - her long black locks lay in a large pile on the table. A loom sat beside the table, and some of her hair was already woven together in a long rope. "I'd planned my escape already, you see." 

"Let me aid you, then," Artanis said, giving her a quick kiss in greeting. Her own golden hair was pinned up in a long braid; she swiftly took the scissors Lúthien had used and cut the braid off close to her head. Shaking her remaining hair free, she was conscious of a lightness and a freedom she had not felt since her days of running races in Tirion. 

She handed the long braid to Lúthien and they set to work. Slow songs lengthened their hair; long soft whispers to the loom persuaded it to work for them, creating them each a long cloak. Then Lúthien took her new mantle, dark as night, and sang over it again, a sleepy summer's tune, a melody of warm nights and soft beds, of woven dreams. Irmo himself she called upon to shroud the eyes of all who beheld it, and Este, to give rest so peaceful that the sleeper would wake only with the next day's dawn. 

Together then they sang over Artanis' cloak, her golden hair shining in the darkness of the room. Tulkas they called upon for strength, that never should it yield no matter what assailed them, and Nessa, that they might run fleet of foot over wide landscapes, and Vana, that the cloak, when called upon, might grow brighter yet, bright as the Sun, bright as Laurelin, and so drive their enemies back. 

When all was done, Lúthien cast herself down, weary, onto the bed, drawing Artanis down with her, and pulled her into a long and tender kiss. Artanis passed her hand over Lúthien's head, caressing her and smiling at the feel of her short hair under her hands. Lúthien was as fair this way as she had been with hair down to her feet, and arched up against Artanis, breathing shallowly. 

Artanis found out why when Lúthien slipped her hands into her short locks, still a little longer than Lúthien's, tugging at the golden strands with clever fingers. Every nerve on her scalp seemed magnified; her senses reeled; she shivered, bending her head down to let Lúthien continue to play with her hair, grasp it in little yanks that caused no hurt but increased her arousal. Lúthien was warm against her, smiling that mysterious happy smile of hers, and Artanis kissed her again, lightly biting at her lips, then nipping her white throat and the points of her ears. 

Even with garments between them - a simple blue gown, halfway hiked up Lúthien's legs, and traveling breeches and a man's shirt on Artanis - Artanis could feel the heat of Lúthien's sex, arching up against her hip and grinding there, slow movements calculated to enflame desire. In the days they had since they had confessed their love to each other - only a mere ten days before! - they had only managed to see each other bare twice, and once that ended unhappily. Already, though, they were well acquainted with bringing each other off whilst clothed, tucked away in closets or cupboards for quick stolen moments. This room, although it was a cage, was larger than most places they'd made love before, and Artanis pushed Lúthien's dress up to her hips, baring her, then pressed her thigh against Lúthien's hot core. 

For long moments they rocked together, exchanging kisses, desire building and building between them. They could not indulge for hours - this was meant to be a short period of rest before their flight out of Doriath began - a stolen moment before a journey full of haste. Lúthien made a soft sound of utter abandonment and shivered in Artanis' arms, coming undone. Her face in ecstasy was beyond words, and Artanis gazed upon her, holding her close, still rocking against her, until she too came with a low desperate sound. 

They lay together for some moments. At last Lúthien wriggled out from underneath her. "Where shall we go?" she asked. "What shall we do?"

Artanis smiled, pressing her brow to Lúthien's shoulder. "If your father desires Silmarils in exchange for you," she said slowly, "then I intend at least to try and fetch them."

"What he means is to use the Dark Foe as an instrument of your death, if you should try," Lúthien said. "And it may yet be so, but my freedom and my choice of who to love should be my own. I will go with you, even into the depths of Angband itself, and to Doriath come never again, unless we are victorious."


End file.
